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Dallas Mavericks are moving on as planned

The Dallas Mavericks are 16-23, looking more like a lottery team than the one that won the NBA championship just two years ago. That's by design. "We planned it out when we signed all those contracts, we knew

The Dallas Mavericks are built for the future. Or at least that's the plan.

Since beating the Miami Heat four games to two for the NBA championship in 2011, the team has had a makeover.

"We planned it out when we signed all those contracts, we knew they were all expiring in two years," said Mavericks owner Mark Cuban. "The year that we won [the championship], the media all came up and asked if I thought it was a problem having all those expiring contracts. It's just the way we planned it. We just made a decision to stick to our plan no matter what because we felt it was logically sound. It just hasn't turned out how we wanted it so far, but anything can change."

So after winning the title, the Mavericks decided not to resign Tyson Chandler who joined the New York Knicks, DeShawn Stevenson who went to the then New Jersey Nets, J.J. Barea who joined the Minnesota Timberwolves and Caron Butler who joined the Los Angeles Clippers. They moved an $8.9 million trade exception and a protected first-round pick to the Los Angeles Lakers for Lamar Odom and a second-round pick, and signed veterans Vince Carter and Delonte West.

This past offseason, Jason Kidd decided not to stay in Dallas but sign with the Knicks and Jason Terry signed with Boston. The Mavericks signed free agents Chris Kaman and O.J. Mayo and signed Elton Brand, who was amnestied by Philadelphia. They traded Ian Mahinmi to the Indiana Pacers and got Darren Collison and Dahntay Jones. Odom was sent to the Los Angeles Clippers.

Cuban thought the age of the championship team was such that it made sense to look more towards the future, even if that future involved a Mavericks team that might be less competitive in the short-term.

"It was a plan and we're sticking to it unless there's some extraneous data that says, 'You're wrong,' and I'll be the first to admit that I'm wrong," Cuban said. "There was no reason to change the plan. I didn't just do this in a vacuum. You look at other teams and they kept their core together too long. There are a lot more of those than, 'Boy, they got their second championship run with an older team, aren't they lucky?' They kept that older core together and look what's happened. How many of those are out there? The logic, I thought, was still sound. I know there are a lot of people out there that think I'm an idiot now, but that was the logic."

Having a lot of new faces is more or less par for the course for Dallas, but this year's crew was assembled with the idea that it would feed off Dirk Nowitzki.

But Nowitzki had surgery on his right knee Oct. 19 after experiencing soreness last season and didn't play until Dec. 22. Losing him early on set the rest of the team back significantly and the team is just starting to regroup.

"Well, I missed two months, basically, and when I came back I still wasn't right, so we just have to keep on working on it," Nowitzki told USA Today Sports. "We have nine new guys, so it's not the team that's been together for us over the last couple of years. So we have a totally new team, I missed two months, now I'm coming back fresh and they have to work me in. We've had some growing pains, but we're going to keep working on it. We've seen some improvement lately and we've got to keep building on that."

The Mavericks' championship team had the right mix of players to make big plays on both ends of the floor, but Nowitzki's shot-making ability combined with Kidd's knack for playmaking on the fly helped them meet the challenge of the modern NBA.

Nowitzki has his own explanation for why the Mavs have struggled in close games this season, immediately citing the absence of Kidd.

"J-Kidd's one of the best to ever play the game," Nowitzki said. "He's one of the best at closing games and having an uncommon effect on everyone out there. We knew coming in that we were going to miss him in certain situations. We knew that Darren [Collison] and Roddy [Beaubois] were going to push the pace more for us, that they're more athletic, but we still miss [Kidd] in situations at the end of games, and defensively he's so good, he can guard one through four, basically, and makes big plays in big situations. So it's been an adjustment period. When I first came back we got blown out five, six, seven games in a row. Now we've made some strides. We took Miami to overtime, took OKC to overtime, played the Clippers well there, got a couple of wins now, so I think we've taken some strides in the right direction. We've got to keep on working, I guess, is the word. This team is going to be a work in progress."

Being a work in progress has been frustrating at times. NBA teams run fewer plays to generate offense and the Mavericks have struggled in half-court sets.

"I really believe that the job of a coach now is to teach guys how to play basketball, not how to run plays," said coach Rick Carlisle. "The challenge has been that with the newer group and the younger guys, they have to learn a different mentality on offense, to a large degree, and to do different things on defense. We've had some challenges with that, but I don't see us as a team that's going to thrive by slowing it down and calling plays every time. The game now has to move, and the guys that we have must make it move and they have to do it better and better. We've made some progress, but we have to keep making progress.

"There are still a lot of teams that run a set offense, but my belief is that we're not structured for it. We've taken the approach that we're going to run a limited amount of set plays, and a lot of the set stuff that we have are options to create playmaking opportunities so they don't necessarily look the same every time. That's where we are philosophically, so it's a process. We're in a growth period and we are getting better."

The Mavericks were among the first NBA teams to engage advanced scouting and in-depth statistics like those provided by Synergy Sports Technology.

It was studying of those numbers that helped Carlisle understand that slowing down and running plays tends to play right into the hands of the defense.

"I think that's where the league is now with the way the game is being played," Carlisle said. "A few years ago, with the way the rules were, you could basically guard your own man. Now, because you can double-team guys who don't have the ball, it has really facilitated the need for freer flowing ball movement as players have learned to adapt the mentality to attack the zone defense. When the zone was first allowed, when the rules changed, it was uncomfortable when a team went zone. You had to hold onto your [rear] because there was a fear factor or a mystery about the zone. Now, when a team sees a zone, the ball moves and they attack and they know what to do. NBA players are extremely smart that way. They adjust and they adapt. It's kind of similar with set offense. Most players in this league can recognize those situations and play the heck out of them defensively. If you think about it, often times you're into the clock a little bit, too, when those situations develop. So to conserve clock it's important to get it out, get it up the court and get into your movement or whatever your schemes are to facilitate the greatest amount of time to get not only a shot, but a great shot."

There might be signs that things are turning around. After a stretch that included four straight losses and Carlisle threatening to suspend players for poor play, the Mavericks have played better of late.

They have three straight wins, one of those a 20-point victory against the Memphis Grizzlies.

"We're getting better, I think we're getting better now," Cuban said. "We've gone from having so many turnovers it was just ridiculous, like how are we going to win games when we're turning it over so much? Then it was about our rebounding and turnovers, now we're getting better and rebounding much better. Then it was our spacing, if you look back, woulda, coulda, shoulda never gets you far in this business, but three of the last four losses we could have closed out with one free throw and we didn't and another loss we could have won if we would've held onto a rebound that we dropped. All of a sudden we are back in it. I guess we revert to the mean basketball gods because we went three or four years where we never lost close games and now we can't seem to win any. We are making progress, we are getting better. Nobody in the locker room has given up. I can tell. If I find anyone giving up on the season, I will kick them to the curb faster than I can lift the boot because that's not how we do it."